Analysis of gallium arsenide deposition in a horizontal chemical vapor deposition reactor using massively parallel computations

A numerical analysis of the deposition of gallium arsenide from trimethylga llium (TMG) and arsine in a horizontal CVD reactor with tilted susceptor an d a 3 " diameter rotating substrate is performed. The three-dimensional mod el includes complete coupling between fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and s pecies transport, and is solved using an unstructured finite element discre tization on a massively parallel computer. A reaction mechanism consisting of three surface and two bulk species, four surface reactions, and four gas phase species was used to model the deposition. The effects of three opera ting parameters (the disk rotation rate, inlet TMG fraction, and inlet velo city) and two design parameters (the tilt angle of the reactor base and the reactor width) on the growth rate and uniformity are presented. The nonlin ear dependence of the growth rate uniformity on the key operating parameter s is discussed in detail. Efficient and robust algorithms for massively par allel reacting flow simulations, as incorporated into our analysis code MFS alsa, make detailed analysis of this complicated system feasible. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.